Bar-A-BBQ in Montgomery is leap of faith for young family
There’s an old saying in the barbecue business: You don’t choose barbecue as a profession, barbecue chooses you. In other words, if you want to open a successful barbecue joint, it has to be an all-consuming passion.
Fortunately, for Cooper Abercrombie, majority owner and pitmaster at the new Bar-A-BBQ brick-and-mortar restaurant in Montgomery, the desire to produce the best Central Texas-style barbecue in the area borders on obsession.
Look no further than the newly built pit room. In addition to the hefty 1,000-gallon
Mule Skinner-built offset barrel smoker, it includes a plush-butwell-worn recliner where Abercrombie and team will snooze between 18-hour shifts of stoking the fires and spritzing the briskets.
Abercrombie began hosting barbecue pop-ups in the area four years ago. Partnering with his wife, Shelby, they spent those years cooking on weekends while building a loyal customer base and perfecting techniques for smoking the meats and making side dishes and baked goods.
They decided to focus on fast-growing Montgomery, just west of Conroe, where Abercrombie grew up.
The pop-ups were drawing large crowds when an opportunity came up.
“We weren’t looking at a brick-and-mortar at the time,” says Abercrombie, referring to a conversation he had several months ago with a local realtor about an empty restaurant building in downtown Montgomery.
But the deal was too good to pass up. At the time, Abercrombie, 28, worked in sales and he and Shelby had just welcomed a second child into their family. Was he really going to give up a steady income to open a restaurant? “We talked and prayed about it,” says Abercrombie, and they ultimately decided it was now or never. He signed a lease on the building that includes a big patio area in the back as well as the newly built pit room.
He recently resigned from his day job and is now cooking barbecue full time on weekends and overseeing the build-out of the new kitchen and dining room. He recruited his brother Caleb, 23, to join the team.
Neither brother had extensive restaurant experience, so they also brought on general manager Jacob Loyd, who recently worked at Tejas Chocolate & BBQ in Tomball. Rounding out the team, Shelby, who is the girls’ basketball coach at Willis High School, helps out when she can.
The idea for Bar-A-BBQ is both simple and unique. Serve world-class Central Texas-style barbecue for lunch until it is sold out (that’s the relatively simple part).
The unique part taps into the nature of Montgomery, which is still, in many, ways a blue-collar town. Abercrombie will open a to-go trailer at 6 a.m. on the mornings they are open to serve grab-and-go items like coffee and breakfast tacos. The dining room will open at 7 a.m. with a more extensive menu of madeto-order breakfast items — sandwiches made with brisket or house-made bacon and specials such as biscuits and gravy.
Abercrombie is currently cooking some of the best barbecue in the Greater Houston area, and it will only get better. Though he’s not getting a lot of sleep these days, when he does, he sleeps well, even if it’s in that worn-out recliner in the pit room.
“I’ve never gone to bed at night feeling more fulfilled,” says Abercrombie. “My cup is full.”